Relying on images that come from CSS has always been risky from an accessibility perspective. CSS background images, in particular, must either be purely decorative or be described to the user in some way. The risk is no different for images coming from CSS generated content using content: url(foo.gif) (typically…
Update, 15 September 2020: Microsoft put together a more formal announcement at Introducing Source Order Viewer in the Microsoft Edge DevTools. It has some video examples and instructions to enable it. Edge 86 has introduced a feature that shows the source order of a page. You can read more about…
While originally I was scheduled to attend CSUN to present two talks one talk, I ended up not attending (my father won A Major Award so I joined him instead). I gave my talk remotely in my scheduled slot (during my father’s award dinner). While I would have loved to…
Whether you call them cards, block links, or some other thing, the construct of making an area of content clickable (tappable, Enter-key-able, voice-activatable, etc.) is not new. While hit area size is mostly a usability issue, marketers often want a larger click area around their calls to action (CTAs) to…
Here is the priority I follow when assigning an accessible name to a control: Native HTML techniques, aria-labelledby pointing at existing visible text, Visibly-hidden content that is still in the page, aria-label. Too often folks will grab ARIA first to provide an accessible name for a thing. Or they may…
Related Under-Engineered Responsive Tables A Responsive Accessible Table Hey, It’s Still OK to Use Tables Keyboard and Overflow
Links to files can be a surprise for users, especially those who cannot use, do not notice, or do not have the status bar to show a link destination. Some users may appreciate knowing a link points to a file, sometimes even a particular file. For links with the download…
Typography that responds to viewport width (‘fluid’ or ‘responsive’ typography) can be useful when you want to ensure text does not get clipped or spill out of some design elements. Carousels, widget controls, or my Venn diagram are some examples. I say viewport width because I rarely see responsive type…
Web developers around the world have celebrated Saturnalia solstice Isaac Newton’s birthday Christmas with advent calendars covering web-related topics. As a result, you may recognize some of the ones listed below. Every year I miss a few on day one, so add a comment or tweet me if you have…
I have often remarked that my blog is little more than a place for me to offload my memory. I need not remember the syntax, logic, test results, etc. of every control, widget, style, browser, and so on. I can just write a post and refer to it later. This…
Since the early days of the web, when images could be floated and text would wrap around them, designers have wanted to bring drop caps onto the web. Then we learned how terrible a pattern like <img alt=”M” align=”left”>atthew is for users, and CSS introduced :first-letter, letting us believe all…
Others in this sorta-series: Under-Engineered Custom Radio Buttons and Checkboxen Under-Engineered Toggles Under-Engineered Toggles Too This is the latest, and not last, in my informal series of posts on under-engineered controls. Generally I am looking at the minimum amount of CSS necessary to style native HTML controls while also retaining…